GUIDE Mental Health Awareness Training - GUIDE, Inc. intends to train individuals who regularly interact with adolescents in Gwinnett County, Georgia on how to appropriately and safely respond to youth with mental health challenges, particularly youth diagnosed with SED, through the provision of the Youth Mental Health First Aid course (YMHFA). Target trainees include school personnel, staff and volunteers of afterschool and other youth-serving organizations, Department of Family and Children Services staff, foster parents, parents and other adults primarily in Gwinnett County, Georgia.
The population the training is intended to help includes culturally, racially and ethnically diverse youth ages 12 to 18 in Gwinnett. This population is 28% Black/AA; 28% Latinx; 19% Caucasian; 12% Asian/PI; 9% Mixed Race and 4% Other. Among this age group, 1.3% have diagnosed emotional behavior disabilities, 3.3% have AD/HD; 4.4% have learning disabilities; and 6.9% have other disabilities.
GUIDE's training plan will use the 6.5-hour evidence-based Youth Mental Health First Aid training to increase mental health awareness. GUIDE will work with View Point Health, their mental health service provider partner, to develop resource materials for trainees that provide de-escalation techniques appropriate for the population of focus and that will explain the screening, assessment, consultation and treatment processes available locally to help them assist youth who exhibit indicators of mental illness (or who have been diagnosed with SED) and their parents/caregivers. They will also help establish user-friendly referral mechanisms that will help trainees refer and link adolescents and their parents to appropriate and accessible mental health resources and services.
GUIDE will develop additional resource materials that identify local, state and national youth mental health resources and support systems that include prevention providers, helplines and crisis lines, online referral resources, 12-step programs, local, regional and statewide mental health assessment, treatment and recovery providers, mental health support systems and advocacy organizations. These will be reviewed annually and updated as needed.
GUIDE will coordinate with local and state health and mental health agencies to expand the capacity to understand and respond to the mental health needs of local adolescents. Representatives of these agencies will be invited to join the Prevention Action Collaborative of Gwinnett to participate in strategic planning that identifies local needs and the resources needed to address them proactively.
